Covariant conservation laws, local invariance and Noether's second theorem

Abstract

We lay down a set of requirements for a field theory to produce a covariant conservation law out of Noether's second theorem, and show that neither local invariance implies a covariant conservation law, nor the existence of a covariant conservation law necessarily stems from the local invariance of the theory. We illustrate our results with the examples of well-known theories.

16 pages, accepted for publication in EPJC